This mode of combat has somewhat fallen out of fashion(serious tank vs. tank combat is only slightly more common than irish elk battling it out with their ridiculous antlers, and not a whole lot less overspecialized…); but the fact that one-hit kills are a definite possibility between units of roughly equivalent technological sophistication is a strong incentive to good vision…

?? They do. He didn’t say they didn’t. When it comes to tanks, the old technology looses a lot . See iraq the two times we went in.

If these are vintage, then they were made to fight other tanks during the cold war, in which case fuzzy’s assessment stands. Being able to see and target your opponent first could save your tank. That and it looks like these are for night vision – something that would come in super handy at night.

I started by noting the rarity because I honestly couldn’t think of a situation since WWII where tanks of technological parity met(I fully concede the possibility that two or more parties using export-grade T-XXs have clashed with each other, in some place too horrid to even make the American newspapers; but I don’t know about it).

It was a pretty big deal in practice during WWII, and then a pretty big deal in planning and procurement during the cold war; but that never actually went hot. Since then, it seems that you occasionally see either the wildly assymetric steamrollering of some eastern-bloc export grade antiques by a NATO power with power to burn(and not infrequently air superiority as well), or a wildly assymetric bushwhacking of some top-of-the-line anti-armor vehicle by dusty infantry with RPGs.

I have one of those Russian paratrooper helmet, it is cool on the outside and warm inside.
The only drawback is that it itches when you start to sweat.
Cool accessory if you plan a dieselpunk or communistpunk party*.

* May also be used in Warhammer 40.000 tournaments if you play with the Imperial Guard.

fuzzyfuzzyfungus: What about Korea? The NKPA had a lot of T-34s at the start of the war, although they lost most of them in the Naktong offensive and the US Pershings were certainly superior.
Iran and Iraq had a lot of tanks in their war, although I don’t know how they were used.